Monday, 25 December 2023

2023 Year in Review

2023 was an interesting year for the Sunbow Marvel Archive. Thanks to the various contributors, material from a wider variety of shows is now available and also helped in demystifying a series that has previously been considered "lost media."

In terms of general organisation, the website has been streamlined to collect the material for 24 shows on 6 pages.

For Transformers, the march towards series completion continued with full or partial storyboards for another 10 episodes, over 100 audition sheets from voice director Wally Burr's collection, plus various model sheets, backgrounds and the script for The Killing Jar.

The biggest Transformers-related item saw release in August. Three years since it was found by Flint Dille and scanned by Jim Sorenson, the very first script for The Transformers: The Movie is available to the public.

G.I Joe saw its first newly-revealed scripts in over a decade, with Flint Dille's Skeletons In The Closet and Doug Booth's My Favorite Things

An unexpected surprise came in the form of over a dozen My Little Pony storyboard sets, sold from the estate of artist Wendell Washer. Including the first special Rescue At Midnight Castle and a selection of episodes from the main series, spanning from the first episode Ghost Of Paradise Estate to the final one The Prince And The Ponies.

Beyond paper material, a selection of dialogue reels from various Marvel Productions' series came to light. Among them was audio from The Young Astronauts, Marvel's ill-fated series about space exploration that was cancelled in mid-production due to the Challenger shuttle explosion. The reels covered dialogue for the episode Ghost Ship, as well as auditions for the series narrator, featuring a who's who of 1980s voice actors.

 




With 2024 marking the 40th anniversaries of Transformers, Muppet Babies and My Little Pony making their television debuts, who knows what untold stories will be uncovered in the year ahead.